


Temptations

by owlmoose



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Demonic Possession, Gen, Trapped in a Dream, Trope Bingo Amnesty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 05:20:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1027697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlmoose/pseuds/owlmoose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bethany Hawke faces down a desire demon and the truth about everything she ever wanted. Circle Bethany, gen, hints of Bethany/Sebastian.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Temptations

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the second round of Trope Bingo (but didn't quite make the posting deadline). Combines the tropes "trapped in a dream", "forbidden fruit", "mind control", and "high school/college AU" -- some interpreted more loosely than others. Also inspired in part by a prompt from kyeshgall on Tumblr.

Bethany folds her hands over the top of her desk and smiles; the professor is droning on about the history of magic, but she has never been happier. The Chantry has relaxed its rules on the control of mages, and now she is enrolled in this college of magic. She spends her days learning to control and exercise her gift, while helping install that same confidence in others, in a community of mages. And then she goes home to her family at the end of each day, to the small cottage on the outskirts of Kirkwall. She has her mother, and her brothers, and her friends, and sometimes she suspects that Sebastian might be thinking of her as something more... 

It is the best of all possible worlds, the compromise that Bethany could only dream about until now. All because of... well, she can't really remember what convinced the Chantry to convert the Gallows from a prison into an institution of higher learning. But it doesn't matter, does it? She closes her eyes, just for a moment, basking in the sun that pours through the side window, even if the sun doesn't seem quite right. Not strong enough, certainly not warm enough -- but she does not want to think about that too deeply. It portends no good. A suggestion that something might be wrong. 

Something wrong... very wrong... why is she the only student in the classroom? Why is the professor a stranger? Bethany frowns, then shakes her head; why is she questioning this? Surely she should not be doubting such a perfect dream come true... but in the back of her head, her father's voice speaks in a stern whisper: "Always pay attention to your instincts when they tell you to question your perceptions; always be on your guard when you stumble into the Fade. Your eyes will lie, your ears will lie, all your senses will lie, but trust your magic to know the difference." 

The Fade. Is this the Fade? Bethany looks around her, heedless of the stares of the instructor and the other students -- the other students, but where did they come from? Or were they always here? Bethany cannot remember, and that bothers her. 

"Don't let it bother you," a voice purrs in her ear; she turns around and sees the instructor, standing by the side of her desk. He rests a hand on the surface and leans over her, smiling warmly. He is handsome, a shock of dark hair falling over his blue eyes, reminding her of-- no one, no one she wants to think about, not here in her perfect place. "Just relax. No one is hunting you anymore. No mage will be hunted ever again." 

"I know, it's just..." Bethany looks around the room, at the other students leaning over the books, at the younger children playing across the hall. "It seems too good to be true." 

_And what does that tell you?_ her father asks, the memory gentle but insistent. _What does it mean when something is too good to be true?_

"It means it's not true," Bethany says aloud, and she backs away from the instructor -- from the demon. "This is the Fade. This is a lie. You're the desire demon that came to me tonight." 

The instructor sighs and stands up straight, shaking his head sadly. "Oh Bethany. I'm so disappointed in you. Here I've given you everything you've ever wanted, and you throw it back in my face?" 

"I don't want it." Bethany can see his demonic features now, lurking behind the mask that he still wears: the black eyes, the purple flames dancing in a nimbus around his head. "Not like this." 

"It's the only way you will ever have it," the demon replies, waving a taloned hand in a circle to encompass the classroom. "Freedom without worry, family without guilt, the lover you've dreamed about for so long." Other faces flicker across its features: Garrett, Carver, Sebastian... her heart twists, and she wrenches her eyes away. 

"It's still a lie." Bethany takes a deep breath, and then looks back at the demon, willing herself to see behind the facade. As she does, the illusion falls away, and it is truly a demon now, not even pretending to be another human mage, or any of the men she loves. 

"Well done, little girl," it says. "You seem to be immune to my grasp. But can you say the same for the others?" 

Bethany turns around and sees the other students -- she recognizes them, now, as the apprentices from the Gallows, the children and youths she is responsible for teaching, for shielding from harm. Each one sits at their desk and stares straight forward, at the demon instructor who, in the blink of an eye, is now back at the front of the room, wearing the professor's mask again, a pointed stick in its hand. "Good morning, children," it says. 

"Good morning, professor," they reply as one, voices flat, dead, locked in the illusion. 

"No, please, listen to me," she says, rushing to the side of one of the apprentices, a girl named Elena, and shakes her shoulder. "Elena, look at me. Look at me!" 

The girl does not respond, only drones "Good morning, master" again, her face blank. Bethany shakes Elena again; when there is no response, she murmurs the spell that reveals hidden enchantments, then pulls a handful of powered orichalcum from her pocket and sprinkles it over Elena's head. The girl shudders, tries to pull away, and then jumps out of her chair. "You're disturbing the class," she says, raising her voice. "Professor, this girl is disturbing the class. I think you should make her leave." 

The demon speaks again, with a booming authority that fills the room. "What do you think, students? Should Bethany leave the classroom? Or should she take her seat and be a good student with the rest of you?" 

The students shrug as one, as indifferent to her plight as to their own, and Bethany fights down a surge of panic. She walks around the room, desk to desk, and sees the same blankness in all their faces. "Is not one of you able to see what is happening? Why aren't you able to fight this?" 

"Because deep down, you don't want them to," the demon says, its words smooth as silk, gliding over the air of the classroom. "This is the future you desire for them. Your dream is as much for them as for yourself." 

"You're wrong." Bethany balls her hands into fists and stands in front of the demon, tilting her chin up to look straight in its eyes. "I don't want this. This is a fraud, a lie. Release them! At once!" 

She reaches behind her back to take hold of her staff -- was it always there? Or has it just now appeared, at the moment she most needs it? Her hands close around the smooth wooden handle as she flips it around her shoulder and points it at the demon, shooting out a jet of fire. Behind her, the children scream, but she holds fast, twirling the staff again for another attack, chanting the words that will engulf the demon in flames. She will burn away this illusion, free herself and the captive apprentices. 

But the creature only throws back its head and laughs; the fire burns itself out, and the demon is unmoved. Its face changes into spitting image of Sebastian Vael. "Bethany?" Her brother's friend, her not-so-secret crush, holds out an inviting hand, a gentle smile on his handsome face, the sunlight glinting off his enameled armor. It is Sebastian to the detail, looking just as he does in her daydreams, just like he did when he came to dinner last night and brought her flowers... no, no, that is a lie. The dinner, the flowers, Sebastian's warm expression: it is only the demon, seeing her deepest desires and bringing them to life. 

"No!" She hits the demon with the fire again; as the flames dissipate, the face changes again, into Garrett's teasing grin, and he shakes his head. 

"Oh, Bethany," he says. "Why don't you just trust me?" 

Bethany whirls the staff over her head and readies another spell. "My brother would never tell me to trust a demon!" 

"Wouldn't he?" The features melt and twist and reform themselves, and Bethany's heart falls into the pit of her stomach as she looks into Carver's bright blue eyes. "Isn't this just the kind of prank our big brother would play?" He shakes his head and lets out a long-suffering sigh. "Come on, Bethany. I miss you. Please come home?" 

She bites her lip, fighting the grief that stops up the back of her throat. All the other temptations, she could set aside, but this one, the dream of having Carver back, whole and alive... she can remember how he dodged the ogre's blow, sliding under its giant fist as Garrett hacked its head off. The ogre died and Carver lived so the four of them could escape together. The way it should have been. The way it still could be, if only... 

"No!" She screams it now, a cry of grief and pain and rage. How dare this demon take her most secret and private pain and use it against her, against all the apprentices in the Gallows? But even knowing that this Carver is an illusion, her heart still breaks as she turns the staff one more time, planting her feet into the ground and drawing its power to sweep her twin off his feet and throw him across the room. Carver-- the demon slams into the wall, and as it slides to the floor the last illusion vanishes, and it is a desire demon once again, wreathed in purple flames. 

It shudders, then floats up into the air, eyes narrow with disappointment and contempt. "Very well, Bethany Hawke. You win this round -- if you truly call this a victory." Waving a hand in the air, it vanishes, and Bethany opens her eyes. 

-x- 

Bethany awoke, her cheek pressed against the cold stone floor. Her head ached; she must have gone down without much warning. Sitting up, she rubbed the sore spot on her temple, then got shakily to her feet. The apprentices were scattered about the floor of the library, most of them fallen where they were, although a few had been slumped over tables. They rubbed their eyes and looked at each other, then at her. 

"Enchanter Bethany?" Elena spoke first, looking at her with confusion. "Was that-- was that a demon?" 

"Yes. I think it was." Bethany closed her eyes for a moment, checking the magical energy of the room; she could find no trace of the creature. "But it's gone now, I promise." 

"You saved us!" One of the younger boys ran to her leg and hugged it, and Bethany rested a hand on his head. 

_"If you truly call this a victory."_ She was a prisoner still, cut off from her family, her friends. Her crush on Sebastian remained a vague fantasy. Carver would always be dead. But she gathered the boy into her arms regardless. "I guess I did." 


End file.
